The New Messenger App from Google - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.messaging

<comment><USER3> Google is going crazy with this unbundling/rebundling nonsense.

There was once Google Voice, Google Chat, Google Talk, Google Hangouts and now Google Messenger! This is crazy.

Yesterday I opened a Google Drive spreadsheet via the Android "Drive" (which was earlier "Docs") app yesterday but when I tried to edit a cell was told I need to install "Sheets" to do so! I'm waiting for Google Save, Google Forward, Google Share, Google Delete. Sorry, scratch that last one cos we know Delete ain't gonna happpen at Google.

<comment><USER4> Google Delete happens. Just ask Google Reader.

<comment><USER5> Did they also delete peoples reading history? Now thats the puzzler.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am amazed it is the end of 2014 and Google (and Microsoft) still have not figured out messaging yet. iMessage is far from perfect but it is a hell of a lot nicer experience than anything else.

This is even more true for Microsoft IMHO as they could (should!) have had an integrated messaging app between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 to allow for transparent SMS/Skype/MSN/WhateverTheyWantToUseNow messaging the same way iMessage does and have everything synced between devices.

<comment><USER7> Maybe the "messenger" app should be somehow like that Blackberry 10 OS "hub" for multiple messaging apps. I don't know. But other than that, I don't think SMS should be deeply integrated into any data-based chat application.

SMS is a legacy system that has no encryption (or very weak one if you count A5/1) and we should let it die. If people focus on data-based chat apps only such as Whatsapp, at least we have a chance to kill SMS and use better encryption for our chats. SMS is also very expensive for what it really costs.

<comment><USER8> SMS continues to be the lowest common denominator because a) not everyone has a smartphone but everyone has SMS, and b) SMS is standard across carriers. We need common carrier protocols for more than just voice and SMS, IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is nice, and I prefer it to the combined hangouts app as I tend to receive a lot of hangouts and few SMS and yet the SMS are sometimes important and effectively this filtered view (by using two apps) makes it easier and quicker to find a specific SMS.

I also like that it's now a little clearer how to block a number. They were under similar interfaces in the hangouts app but because it was combined it wasn't as clear.

It would be good for the times that I do get SMS spam if Google partnered with the telcos in such a way that Google reported back spam and offered a "Report Spam" button in addition to the block option.

The material design really does make the Hangouts app look dated and clunky by comparison.

<comment><USER10> I agree, but why switch to hangouts for SMS at all? I just kept the stock app as default for SMS. I really hate going into hangouts at all, I don't know what I'll do when they disable the XMPP bridge. My main medium of communication with my friends is Hangouts on Pidgin for the desktop, and I'm not looking forward to moving to some chrome app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> My conspiracy theory is that this app will eventually replace the Hangouts app.

Notes:

1) This is not AOSP. It is closed source. And since it can be updated through Play, Google can ship new features independent of Android releases. Some say good (I do). Some might label it as a trojan horse... for Hangouts.

2) For Lollipop, carriers choose between the classic AOSP Messaging app and this one, Messenger.

3) Hangouts suspiciously has not received the Material Design treatment.

4) Google is holding Material Design hostage to get Messenger onto the phone as the default SMS/MMS app, possibly to deliver an even more integrated Hangouts later.

5) Wonder if Messenger is part of the Google app preload required to get the Play Store on the device?

<comment><USER12> Hangouts looks pretty 'Material' to me, and has got its updated look quite early before lollipop.

Hangouts can be downloaded on its own from the Play Store too can't it - <USER2> sure what the angle is for Messenger...other than no Google Account.... strange

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Didn't we just get done transitioning to hangouts for everything?! Jeez...

<comment><USER14> Yeah I'm really starting to get annoyed with this.

The most painful part is thinking back to when I signed up for my Google Voice number. The promise seemed so great. A single number that Google would control and allow me to forward to any phone. At the time I thought Google were the guys who get it, the guys I'd want to have controlling my number for years to come. And they'd let me text using my browser too!! A hugely useful feature.

And YET here we are. hangouts is the most dysfunctional chat experience I've ever seen. It's like a normal chat client crossed with Bonzi Buddy. But I have to use it to get GV texts on my browser.

I think the saddest part is that my number hasn't actually changed once since I got GV.

:(

<comment><USER15> "But I have to use it to get GV texts on my browser"

Not sure if I'm misunderstanding what you mean but you should still be able to see your Google Voice texts via browser at voice.google.com (the pre-Hangouts interface).

I'm not a big fan of the crossover of Hangouts and voice either, I still use the older UIs (voice.google.com via browser and the old Google Voice app on android) and both still work for me so far.

<comment><USER14> It's true I could do this. I'm pretty reluctant to because I really want to use hangouts for both on my phone. It remembers which number I've texted someone from previously which is pretty indispensable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Gyah, my android messaging experience is so confused! Has anyone else managed to get a nice experience with Google Voice? What's your set up? Last I checked, hangouts still _sends_ SMS under your real phone number, not the GV one. Is that still the case?

I also tried tossing in TextSecure at one point, and now sometimes I get texts there, sometimes Hangouts, sometimes neither.... Sigh.

<comment><USER17> If you want to make it explicit, you can set up Hangouts to move your actual phone number to a separate "account" for only SMS, which leaves the only phone number from your gmail as your GV number.

It's worked pretty well for me, at least on Android. The Hangouts replacement for the web client is garbage, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Obligatory rant about too many IM apps: [http://the.taoofmac.com/space/blog/2014/11/13/0830#the- insta...](http://the.taoofmac.com/space/blog/2014/11/13/0830#the-instant-mess- we-re-in)

<comment><USER19> From that post: _Jabber and XMPP were full of promise, sure — if you bought into the "let's build decentralized, interoperable services" Kool-Aid._

I think that article makes a lot of good points, but I am not sure why the author takes such a negative attitude towards that Jabber/XMPP "Kool-Aid". If successful, essentially all the other issues they complain about would be solved. You would not need to worry about iMessage grabbing your phone number or WhatsApp selling your contacts' information. With Off-the-Record messaging, you would have secure chats. The open standard would enable different clients with different features, some of which would undoubtably be battery life and data plan friendly.

<comment><USER20> I think they just mean that most people simply don't care about the decentralized and interoperable check boxes. They use the apps their friends use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Uh, nice I guess? Is it end-to-end encrypted like TextSecure? (Or WhatsApp, now?)

Because if not, why would anyone want this? Is this just the moving of the SMS app out of AOSP and submerging with Hangouts? Is TextSecure (and the upcoming Signal) not clearly better?

<comment><USER22> I guess the main purpose is to update the UI of the default android messenger.

<comment><USER7> While turning it from an open source app into a proprietary one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> As someone who does not have unlimited SMS and also communicates with many international phone numbers, this is a step backwards. The unification of hangouts and SMS allowed me to control which medium my messages took, which saves me a lot of money and allows me to stay in touch wherever I am in the world. Before, I had to straddle two apps to make this happen. With Hangouts, it's all one interface and conversation threads are combined.

<comment><USER24> I think you can still use Hangouts for SMS messages just fine. I've heard the main reason Google made this app was to please US carriers who want to push a standalone SMS app so people spend more sending SMS messages instead of saving money when on wifi.

<comment><USER25> Yup. Hangouts and any other SMS client can be set as default. This was done for the carriers and I have no intention on using it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm not sure why they removed the ability to send your location via maps, as you can do this with the hangouts version of sms messaging.

<comment><USER4> It's practically a killer feature for me - _so_ useful when meeting up with someone, and en route. I'd like to see it go further: let me message a temporary location tracker, so I can share my location with someone for, say, an hour, without having to enable stalking-mode permanently.

<comment><USER27> While it's not built-in to Android, the app Glympse does exactly this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I like this app better than Google Hangouts but I can't seem to figure out how to use it to send SMS from my Google Voice number. I can only send from my carrier's number. I tried changing the "my number" setting but it didn't do anything.

</comment><comment><USER29> I wonder if this works with Moto Assist for spoken SMS messages and responses while driving. SMS for Hangouts does not and this doesn't seem to replace the official Messaging app (...yet?)

</comment><comment><USER30> Why doesnt Google instead introduce 1) rich text editing in gmail app? 2) better cut / copy / paste in all its apps on android?

<comment> jon-wood Surely if you're on Hacker News you have some idea of how software development works, and that Google doesn't have a single team working on all their Android apps. Releasing something like this is unlikely to have diverted people away from GMail.

Instaedit: Sorry, that had a really harsh tone to it. I was just surprised to see that sort of post here, as opposed to Facebook where I can almost get that people believe there's a few people doing absolutely everything, and any thread is a valid dumping ground for the grievances.

<comment><USER31> I think your apologetic edit actually managed to be more condescending than the original comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> apparently someone realized that fusing hangouts with sms was not the right idea...

</comment><comment><USER33> If the energy put into the creation of mobile apps nobody needs was spend elsewhere, we would live in Utopia already.

<comment><USER34> What about the energy spent writing HN comments criticizing others for making useless things?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Yay, same name as the Messenger app from Facebook - that's gonna end up in a lawsuit. Doesn't the Play store disallow apps with the same name by default?

<comment><USER34> It's not the same name; the other is called "Facebook Messenger".

There's also Yahoo Messenger, WhatsApp Messenger, Tango Messenger, Smug Messenger and a couple of plain "Messengers" already, so I doubt any lawsuits will have a leg to stand on.

<comment><USER36> Nope, Facebook's messaging app is just called "Messenger", at least on Android: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.o...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.orca) I know because I was looking for it in the list of installed apps to uninstall it just yesterday and had trouble finding it at first because its name didn't start with Facebook.

(You may be thinking of the iOS version which is apparently called "Facebook Messenger".)

<comment><USER34> It actually shows as "Facebook Messenger" here. Might be a translation issue, since my account is in Portuguese, though.

[http://i.imgur.com/SugMYnS.png](http://i.imgur.com/SugMYnS.png)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Go-based freegeoip.net now supports SSL for its API - <AUTHOR> http://freegeoip.net

<comment><USER2> For those unfamiliar, this free usage limit is much more relaxed than Google's Geocoder, which limits you to 2,500 free requests per day.

[https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/#...](https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/#Limits)

<comment><USER3> Google offers three geocoders:

The first[1] converts ip to location, and allows 100 free queries per day.

The second[2] converts physical addresses to location as part of it maps JavaScript api, and is part of its 25,000 free requests/day.

The third[3] is its http version of geocoding, which also converts physical addresses to locations or visa-versa. This api has the 2,500 req/day limit.

[1][https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/business/ge...](https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/business/geolocation/)

[2][https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/...](https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/geocoding)

[3][https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/](https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why is it important what programming language was used in implementing a given web service+

<comment><USER5> Because anything that mentions Go gets more Karma?

<comment><USER6> Maybe because Go is exciting as a new and accessible language that appears to be both fast and pleasant to use?

I'm looking forward to ditching Python for Go.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is exactly what I've been doing for the last months and freegeoip.net is part of the change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well written code except around //Check Quota . Scope for better readability there. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> There's definitely room for improvement there, thanks for pointing that out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> GitHub issues as their best.

[https://github.com/fiorix/freegeoip/issues/22](https://github.com/fiorix/freegeoip/issues/22)

Thanks guys for implementing it.

</comment><comment><USER9> These guys might consider allowing people to pay for more requests. Even with the source, it would be easier for some people to just pay you, and you can still keep everything open source.

<comment><AUTHOR> No plans to see anything there. It's a community supported service (volunteer donations only) and will always be. Also, although it currently uses MaxMind's GeoLite, this system has absolutely no affiliation with any company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> See also [https://dazzlepod.com/ip/188.8.131.52.json](https://dazzlepod.com/ip/22.214.171.124.json) w/o hard limit; replace 188.8.131.52 with any IP.

</comment><comment><USER11> Is this a REST API over Maxmind db ?

<comment><USER12> This needs more visibility. There should be clear indication on the page that this is just an API for the freely available MaxMind db's.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not. As I explained elsewhere it currently uses MaxMind but there's no affiliation with the company and I might eventually switch to any other db as did many times in the past.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Thanks, I've been looking for a Geo-IP API that supports both JSONP and SSL. Perfect.

<comment><AUTHOR> ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> fiorix, I am curious why you are using sqlite/redis as a store for the geoip data, instead of using cgo in conjunction with libGeoIP.

Was it to enable updates to the geoip data if you get corrections (crowdsourced or otherwise)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Some of the early versions used libgeoip, but the database has changed many times over time; it started with MaxMind data, then switched to ipinfodb.com, then ip2location.com came into the mix, and currently is back to using MaxMind again with a few tweaks. The idea is to be free to change to whatever is more suitable whenever is necessary... Redis was initially used in the Python version (twisted+cyclone) to share usage quotas between multiple instances (one per cpu), and ended up in the Go version just because; actually, it could use a map or something, but I'd have to implement the ttl part... In other words, it's mostly for historical reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> NICE! I've been looking for something like this to interface with Piwik

<comment><USER12> Piwik already has GeoIP with the same database (Maxmind) built in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great job! Finally a perfect geoip database with api application. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Nice job!! The source code is very well written!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> No IPv6 support?

<comment><USER19> There's an open issue for IPv6 on GitHub: [https://github.com/fiorix/freegeoip/issues/21](https://github.com/fiorix/freegeoip/issues/21)</comment></comment>


Nokia Is Said to Be Near Software Partnership With Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-02-09/nokia-is-said-to-be-near-software-partnership-with-microsoft.html

<comment> DanI-S I love Nokia's hardware, and have great respect for Microsoft's mobile team. But I'm not sure whether two dinosaurs together can run faster than one.

<comment><USER2> What is the track record of Microsoft in this kind of partnerships?

Genuine question.

<comment><USER3> You'd have to define "this kind of partnership". There are a number of mobile device makers building Windows phones. And there have been many co-development and branding deals over the years with Microsoft and PC makers. Many have been successful, many have failed.

This, however, brings to mind the OS/2 deal, to me. If Microsoft culture is anything like it was in the 90s (which may not be the case), I would expect Microsoft to be a loyal partner with Nokia until such time as it is advantageous for them to go their own way, leaving Nokia holding the bag on a jointly developed "standard" platform that no one else wants.

But, hey, I'm a cynical old nerd that's been involved in technology too long. The fact that Microsoft is a distant third, and losing ground daily, in the market might make a difference in how they treat their friends.

<comment><USER4> The supposed Microsoft Nokia partnership isn't joint development of a phone OS. It looks more likely that Nokia could get out of the OS business altogether.

I'm not sure that OS/2 is the best analogy. That wasn't a hardware company and software company teaming up. And it is unlikely that Nokia and Microsoft will evolve to become direct competitors in the way IBM and Microsoft did in the late 1980's and early 90's.

<comment><USER3> "I'm not sure that OS/2 is the best analogy. That wasn't a hardware company and software company teaming up."

I can't make any sense of this statement. IBM was the _definitive_ hardware company at the time. Microsoft was the _definitive_ software company at the time. What kind of companies do you think they were?

"The supposed Microsoft Nokia partnership isn't joint development of a phone OS."

As far as I can tell, we have no idea what sort of partnership they have in mind. But, I would expect Nokia to want a unique value, if they build Windows phones. And they have a huge development workforce, and have made numerous software acquisitions over the years. I'd be surprised if they don't plan to write some code, too.

<comment><USER5> IBM was a systems company, not a hardware company. The difference is that a hardware company doesn't, by and large, develop their own software.

Apple is another example of a systems company.

<comment><USER3> "IBM was a systems company, not a hardware company. The difference is that a hardware company doesn't, by and large, develop their own software."

You can't have it both ways. Nokia makes the vast majority of their own software and has for years. They have a huge software development staff, and have acquired a number of major software shops to augment it.

And, while we're on the subject, in the PC market, IBM did _not_ , by and large, develop their own software. They contracted out to Microsoft to make the OS in the beginning, and then teamed up with them to make OS/2. So, technically, I guess you can't compare the two because Nokia makes a lot more of the software on its devices than IBM made on its early PCs. But, that's the opposite of the argument you've made above.

I don't think it really matters, though. I think this is a mistake for Nokia, and I think time will bear that assertion out.

And, of course, if you don't like the IBM and OS/2 comparison, how about SGI and Windows NT? That was a unique relationship between a hardware (and software) company and Microsoft that had disastrous consequences for SGI.

<comment><USER5> _Nokia makes the vast majority of their own software and has for years._

Hence the premise, "It looks more likely that Nokia could get out of the OS business altogether". Without that premise; yes, Nokia is obviously IBM. So question that premise rather than the validity of the argument, if that's your intention. I myself think it's a shaky premise, but _given that premise_ , Nokia isn't IBM.

 _And, while we're on the subject, in the PC market, IBM did not, by and large, develop their own software_

IBM had literally _decades_ of experience developing their own software for every other type of computer before PC's even existed. Likewise, Nokia has decades of experience developing embedded software for cellular phones. Has Nokia matched iOS or Android yet? No, and neither had IBM matched the Apple II.

The company-defining question is where one goes from there--IBM adopted DOS as a stopgap but quickly worked to develop OS/2, first with Microsoft and then without them (hence attempting--and failing--to remain a systems company). Nokia has attempted to develop Symbian, but if they drop Symbian and decide to adopt Windows Phone (which, again, was expressly the premise of that comment), they would move in the opposite direction, like Tandy did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So, Nokia is said to prefer a 'partnership' with Microsoft, as opposed to being just another hardware vendor working with Google's Android. That means Nokia would have a special status with Windows Phone 7.

Would the other hardware vendors Microsoft has been working with be kicked out, leaving WP7 to run only on Nokia hardware? I find it hard to think of any other 'special status' Nokia can have, if other vendors also offer WP7 phones. Or would other vendors be forced to offer ones with severe limitations, to differentiate Nokia's? If so it seems to not make sense for the other vendors.

Also not sure why it makes sense for Microsoft. Giving Nokia special status means limiting the amount of hardware vendors. Perhaps Microsoft just wants to do the iPhone thing - tightly integrated software+hardware - but they could have done that in-house, like the did with Zune. Why have a single hardware vendor that isn't themselves?

For Nokia, I can see how this might make sense - they have had lots of delays while developing their software platform, and Microsoft has a viable one now. However, it seems it would make much more sense for Nokia to just fork Android, which is also a viable platform, and a more popular one at that. Also, it is free of cost, unlike WP7.

So overall this is very odd, but I guess the details will come out soon, and maybe it will make more sense.

<comment><USER7> > _"However, it seems it would make much more sense for Nokia to just fork > Android, which is also a viable platform, and a more popular one at that. > Also, it is free of cost, unlike WP7."_

I've seen WP7 run faster on remarkably little hardware - it's a lot like iOS in that sense. Where even Froyo would lurch and struggle, iOS and WP7 have been shown to make very snappy experiences out of relatively old hardware.

This can potentially lend a _lot_ of hardware advantages. The current "we have N core in our phones!" race that HTC, LG, Moto, and Samsung are running in is in no small part due to the lackluster performance of Android. The only apparent solution is to throw more and more hardware at it (and to be fair, it's working, the latest generation of Android devices are finally as snappy as my pokey 500MHz iPhone).

But consumers don't care about their megahurtz or their cores. They want a snappy UI that works for them - if Nokia can create a better experience for less hardware, they pocket that difference. This can also confer spec-sheet advantages that customers _do_ care about - e.g. battery life.

Secondly, as a "preferred partner" for MS, Nokia might have some say over where the platform goes. I think it's pretty safe to say that Google does what it wants with Android, and if Nokia wanted a feature they'd have to wait in line like everyone else. Given the poor sales of WP7 so far, I'm betting MS is willing to bend over backwards and Nokia may get to drive the platform development in a big way.

<comment><USER8> I don't know about that, my iPhone 3G was unusable even before 4 was released, which doesn't bode very well for iOS. On the other hand, Android is very responsive on a $200 Samsung S, which can't be that much faster than the 3G...

<comment><USER9> iPhone 3G has an ARM11 620 MHz processor (underclocked to 412 MHz). I'm not sure what a Samsung S is (Galaxy S? Nexus S?), but if you are referring to a Galaxy S, the Galaxy S is quite a bit faster.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, it's called Galaxy 3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unlike many other phone manufacturer's (and like Apple), Nokia has long placed strategic value on phone operating systems. For a company with that tradition, a Microsoft solution makes sense as a replacement for inhouse OS development because Microsoft's core business model is B2B (unlike Google and Apple).

In other words, nobody is likely to question Microsoft's ability to deliver and support a company the size of Nokia given their track record with large worldwide companies. Nor are people likely to question Microsoft's ability to provide user support when WP7 is placed on commodity phones given their track record with Windows.

What the article misses is that the first victim of Microsoft Nokia partnership is likely to be RIM. A Microsoft and Nokia partnership is likely to be a powerful player in enterprise. And from a strategic perspective, Microsoft can benefit even if the partnership is not a cash cow because it allows them to solidify the vertical extents of their product line. Reducing the penetration of Android and iOS into the enterprise isn't a bad thing for Microsoft either.

[Edit] Pitching Java in favor of .Net may also be a factor influencing Nokia's thinking - given the way Oracle has been acting recently.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's a bit surprising that Nokia wouldn't go for another Linux-based platform (Android), but I guess that anything is better than their current strategy.

I guess that WP7 will allow them to provide an alternative to all the Android devices out there, and unlike Android, they could potentially be the premier WP7 vendor if they execute correctly.

<comment><USER11> There are still millions of windows users, and the phone is quickly becoming the computer. If you can make phones do "computer things" in away that is just like the computer these folks are used to, you might have an angle of attack, which is more than nokia has now.

Betting on the same plan as your nimbler competitors is a dominated strategy game theory-wise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not exactly surprising considering Elop's background.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, everyone keeps trying to make this into a technical or business decision, when it's clearly not. Partnering with an also-ran doesn't make sense except in the context of Elop coming from Microsoft and bringing along a team of softies.

Only a Microsoft fanatic would look at the mobile landscape right now and think, "I know, I'll team my struggling company up with those guys. They really know what they're doing."

<comment><USER4> Microsoft knows how to work with large companies - and look at the alternatives to WP7:

1\. In house development. Nokia has "been there done that" 2\. Android - Google's B2B track record isn't all that great. 3\. iOS [just kidding]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If Nokia were to do this, then they had better find a way to make developer migration/adoption as frictionless as possible.

We're talking about smartphones here, which are going to be driven by developers to some extent. A whole scale migration from Symbian/MeeGo to something else is going to be a messy one for sure, one that's definitely going to anger the current crop of developers.

With frameworks like Qt in place, which makes it easy for developers to build for all Nokia platforms, I tend to think that Nokia would not to go down the path of an OS overhaul.

Then again, anything is possible when you've got billions of dollars in revenue. It could be anything from an OS switch, to a new version of Qt which natively compiles Python, Ruby, JS, etc

EDIT: this - <http://venturebeat.com/2011/02/09/nokia-cancels-meego-phone/>

seems to make one wonder even more about Nokia is up to

<comment><USER14> The first "MeeGo" phone was designed to run Maemo 6 and was set to be released in 2010. MeeGo changed plans and the hardware was ready to be scrapped. The successor is in development.

I'd believe WP7 could replace Symbian in mid-range phones, and MeeGo is reserved for really high-end phones and tablets (possibly for x86-devices only). MeeGo and Qt won't go anywhere though, even if Nokia doesn't use them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If this pans out it may prove to be one of the most interesting changes in the mobile landscape for awhile. Nokia has the hardware capabilities and while I don't personally like it, MS has come up with a pretty good OS which I'm sure is only going to evolve rapidly. Don't think anything I've seen yet will pry my Android out of hands but I would love to see his pan out and form another big mobile player. I think the market can easily support 3 solid platforms.

</comment><comment><USER16> I see this as the last nail in Nokia's coffin. Android has a lot of momentum, Windows Phone 7 is "barely" out. Again Nokia plunges into uncertainty instead of competing with other manufacturers on the hardware front.

</comment><comment><USER17> If true, I wonder what this means for Mac syncing. Nokia's Mac software works wonderfully with the E71 and I'd hate to see that go by the wayside.</comment>


Generation X slackers, showing boomers and millennials how to deal - <AUTHOR> https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2020/03/forgotten-generation-x-slackers-no-more-showing-boomers-and-millennials-how-to-deal-when-reality-bites.html <comment><USER2> > While millennials and Gen Z kept partying and going to the beach, and > boomers who didn't want to recognize they are not so young anymore kept > brunching, Gen X stood up and took action — and stayed in.

I never understood how broad-sweeping generalizations get made like this. Where's the data to support it? Some rowdy college kids on spring break don't speak for all of Gen Z. Sure, the going narrative is "young people don't care because it's inconsequential to them" \-- it makes for a nice sound bite, but is it actually realistic?

<comment><USER3> No, it's bullshit.

[https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-one-generation- takin...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-one-generation-taking-the- coronavirus-less-seriously-than-others-not-really/)

> There's been a lot of finger pointing in the past few days over who isn't > taking the coronavirus seriously. Some have pointed to millennials out at > bars or brunch, saying they are not taking recommendations to stay home and > avoid crowds to prevent the spread of the virus. Others have gotten > frustrated with baby boomers stubbornly carrying on with their weekly > gatherings and travel plans. (President Trump asked Americans to avoid > unnecessary travel in new national guidelines Monday.)

> But when you look at recent polls, there just isn't any evidence that one > age group is more concerned than another about the spread of the disease. > And furthermore, there doesn't seem to be an age gap in people's willingness > to adopt preventive measures.</comment></comment>


Interactive Resume - <AUTHOR> http://www.rleonardi.com/interactive-resume/ <comment><USER2> The lack of imagination here is just staggering. Holy cow. I mean first and foremost you're just getting a link to this directly, who's to say he doesn't also have a RESUME.DOC file that he sends out, including a link to this page?

Beyond that, I feel like this guy just might be looking for companies that are willing to take 60 seconds out of looking through a stack of nearly-identical paper resumes to indulge something a bit different. Maybe this is his way of filtering out companies who would "skip this applicant" because he didn't send in a .pdf resume with a list of buzzwords. And of course this isn't the simplest way to get across the information in a resume... that would just be a well-designed text resume. He's trying to flex his skills and show you what he's capable of, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that he understands that this is not the single most efficient way to get that information across.

<comment><USER3> It took exactly 22 seconds for the 'loading...' message to disappear. After this, I had to read blinking instructions, then keep pressing the down arrow, which doesn't really qualify as "interactive."

As the information was scrolling through my screen, I found it difficult to read but I didn't want to release the down arrow key because I wanted to be done with it.

Just my experience. My 'UX' experience, unfortunately.

<comment> mh- that experience would be infuriating, but FWIW it wasn't mine, and I'm overly- sensitive to that sort of stuff (I never would have waited 22 seconds, or even 10.)

it took 3 seconds w/ cold for me to see the instructions. I scrolled through the experience like I would a normal page (albeit translated to left and right.)

worked fine.

while not my cup of tea, I'm not a visual person, this seemed well done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There seems to be some confusion between a resume and a portfolio.

While this is clever, unfortunately what it does is make the job of getting the candidate's details harder. Say I have a pile of resumes and what not on my desk, and this. I want to compare them. Easy with the pile of 2 page resumes and attached portfolios, but with this I have to muck on a computer, trying to make out various bits and bobs, then even note them down myself so that I can compare. In fact, I clicked twice and gave up.

People have suggested this is a great way for a designer to show case skills. But IMHO, this is a colossal disaster. What it has does is allow design to get in the way of the content, and worse still, make the content less accessible. Yes, very cute, flashy, clever and skilled, but it shows that the so called designer has failed to understand what the point of design is. Design is supposed to facilitate, NOT make things harder. If it make life harder, it has failed. Does it make the recruiters job easier? No. Does it facilitate the passing on of vital information? No. Clever skills, but a design failure.

Really, I fully understand and appreciate that hackers appreciate the raw skills, and so we should, but I don't think people have their hiring HR heads on, and have also forgotten the basic point of design.

Sorry to swim against the tide here, but given a pile of competent resumes, I'd probably skip this applicant.

<comment><USER5> >> But it shows that the so called designer has failed to understand what the point of design is. Design is supposed to facilitate, NOT make things harder.

You are the confused person here.

Design isn't meant to facilitate understanding in all cases. You're letting one specific use cloud your understanding of a general concept.

Designers design with specific aims in mind. These could be expression of content, ease of use for a specific culture, expression of a feeling, wow factor, or rigid conformity to a set style/concept, etc.

Do you believe that somebody that simply wrote in a black-and-white grid that they are proficient at beautiful animated interactive designs is proving this ability with the same authenticity as this guy was able to?

       Resume 1:

       Beauty: 10/10
       Animation: 9/10
       Interactivity: 7/10

vs.

       Resume 2:

       A time investment in creating something that shows this.

Resume 1 is extremely easy to fake, resume 2 is an authentic signal. You are free to throw resume 2 into the bin, but you are a fool if you do so.

<comment><USER4> No, not confused. The fact you have widened the issue out to "all cases" seems to imply you might be.

The aim of this resume is like all other resumes, to get an interview. If not, its not a resume, its part of a portfolio.

Last point relies on making that comparison in the first place, which is a straw man. No reason to compare like that. Its your own invention.

<comment><USER5> > The aim of this resume is like all other resumes, to get an interview (1). > If not, its not a resume (2), its part of a portfolio (3).

So what you're saying is that: a resume exists to get an interview (1), and therefore if it's not a resume and is a portfolio (3) it therefore does not exist to get an interview (2)?

Fact: resumes exist to get interviews.

Fact: portfolios also exist to get interviews.

Fact: a resume can have the form of a portfolio piece and vice versa.

The resume is a terrible way of validating ability. I would prefer a portfolio piece of a designer, or a repository of a developer to their resume.

>> Last point relies on making that comparison in the first place, which is a straw man. No reason to compare like that. Its your own invention.

I disagree. The intention of sending a resume in this form is likely to be that you want to be judged on the merits of the format you chose and the skills it required. Your original implication that they want to be judged with the same criteria as a black-and-white grid is almost certainly false.

<comment><USER6> _Fact: a resume can have the form of a portfolio piece and vice versa_

I see you like to play it fast and loose with the meaning of words. A quick review:

 _A résumé is a document used by persons to present their backgrounds and skills. A typical résumé contains a summary of relevant job experience and education._

 _An artist 's portfolio is an edited collection of their best artwork intended to showcase an artist's style or method of work_

\-- Wikipedia

In summary, a resume cannot be a portfolio, and vica versa, because a resume is an executive summary while a portfolio is a showcase.

<comment><USER5> Right, very condescending....

1\. At no point do either of your definitions mention that the properties or terms are mutually exclusive.

2\. You made a comparison between a resume and a portfolio, as opposed to a resume and a portfolio piece. The difference is crucial because the definition you provided mentioned the word collection - and because the "interactive resume" couldn't have been considered a collection of portfolio pieces.

3\. In real life words often don't have such rigid boundaries. and thank god because otherwise the portfolio-resume would only be able to be discussed by people that have property-level understanding of the world and you would be the slack-jawed fool of the conversation.

<comment><USER6> My apologies, I misread you earlier, thinking you meant a "resume" and a "portfolio" were interchangeable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are you all kidding me? This resume is amazing and if he isn't being super humble in describing most of his skills I don't know how he created this.

<comment><USER8> Agree completely, and well done to the OP.

So far I've seen "you can't print this out!" (who cares?) and "some of the transitions could be smoother!"

This one is my favorite:

"This isn't a one-page form. It's not going to fit on my desk. I'm going to pass on this candidate."

Seriously people? You think this guy doesn't have a hard copy of his resume? Your goal is to hire a talented candidate. This exercise demonstrates talent, and was created for exposure. Not optimization of communication in the form of a one-page CV that will end up decomposing on some hiring manager's desk that doesn't have the decency to reply to candidates he or she will not be hiring.

<comment><USER9> Well the other positive about this resume other than it being fantastic is that you know for certain you don't want to work anywhere that passes on you because of your beautifully designed, creative resume.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Cute, and very impressive. But I cringe whenever I see a resumé where someone rates each of their skills on a scale. We're all familiar with the idea that true masters are generally the first to admit that they have a lot more to learn.

<comment><USER11> I'm told that Google asks employees to rate their technology skills on a scale of 1-10. Guido van Rossum puts his Python skills at a 7.

<comment><USER12> I hate to be that guy, but... [citation required]. (Not trying to heckle, just would like to hear it first hand, so to speak.)

<comment><USER13> I've been interviewed by Google and they definitely do as part of the screening process before even the first phone interview. They acknowledge the limitations of that kind of rating upfront and give examples of what each number would represent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow. Hit this on mobile. I'm not sure what it looks like on desktop, but on mobile it's amazing. Swipe to move, everything perfectly in place. I too often roll my eyes when someone ranks themselves a "master", but whoa...I actually believe this guy.

<comment><USER15> took a look on mobile chrome. pretty awful experience, tbh. looks pretty, but i was expecting a swipe to take you to the next step automatically. unfortunately once you get to movement, each swipe is like one tick on the scroll wheel... i couldn't get past the first gate after like 20 swipes, got fed up, and left.

<comment><USER16> iphone 5 & iOS safari... most amazing thing I have seen on a web browser. the experience was seamless and it actually felt like you were playing a video game.

<comment><USER17> iPhone 5 worked really well. However, on myiPad 2 it's really choppy?

To the GP - if you think of it like a game controller you don't have to continuously keep swiping - just drg your finger lowky through the "levels"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wow, I really can't believe the negativity there. This is creative and amazing. The guy seems like a winner. The comments on here are dreadful. The point here was to make a statement and get eyeballs. This site already has accomplished that.

<comment><USER19> I can believe and understand the negativity, because:

a) making a statement and getting eyeballs is not always a good thing—a lot depends what kind of statement it is and how exactly eyeballs were attracted.

b) understanding when you shouldn't do something just because you can is a very big plus for a creative person. Alas, this resume shows the extreme lack of it.

<comment><USER20> Out of curiosity, what would you have edited out of this (to you point 'b')?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A key part of design is choosing the correct medium for the content/audience/users. While this demo displays a few raw technical skills, it's also a _completely_ incorrect choice of medium. A well designed resume does _not_ look like this. In fact, a well-designed game also does not look like this. Is there any well-designed thing that _would_ look like this?

I was sorely disappointed also because I am excited by the idea of interactive display of content, but this isn't it. An interactive resume could, for example, summarize experience and skills briefly, and offer easy access to more detail and portfolio examples. And, of course, scrolling through non- interactive content (using up and down to go left and right, no less) isn't the greatest example of "interactive".

</comment><comment><USER22> Very Cool, tiny bit of feedback:

The transition _out_ of the water is a bit jarring...

<comment><USER23> Definitely, he should use something like a ladder. Shouldn't be too hard for him given he did the balloon thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> My digital resume was a popular github project:

[https://github.com/philipithomas/cv- philipithomas](https://github.com/philipithomas/cv-philipithomas) (It's deprecated - link to live is no longer accurate)

I'm in the process of trying to reinvent it. Here's the current iteration:

[https://www.philipithomas.com/resume/](https://www.philipithomas.com/resume/)

It's an ongoing project, but I think that either using a static site generator or javascript templates. I'm also planning on incorporating navigation like I used on this project:

[http://scheduling.philipithomas.com](http://scheduling.philipithomas.com)

<comment><USER25> I also put mine on github, though it never became popular -- possibly due to the terrible README.

Project: [https://github.com/kerrick/hire.kerricklong.com](https://github.com/kerrick/hire.kerricklong.com)

Live: [http://hire.kerricklong.com/](http://hire.kerricklong.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The first time I loaded the page (OS X 10.8.5, the latest version of Chrome), I got an unstyled mess of black text on a white background. I refreshed the page again and got a blank blue screen. I had to refresh a half-dozen times before getting the actual content.

Which points to the problem with this sort of thing. A lot of the design work here is stellar, sure, but that doesn't matter. You've already lost the job to the guy with the dead-tree resume.

<comment><USER27> Same exact issue here, in Safari.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's very pretty, but using the down button to go right is a bit counter- intuitive.

<comment> r-cid It's not too bad with the trackpad on my macbook. Seem's to be designed for mousewheeling

<comment><USER23> It works wonders with touch enabled devices like smartphones and tablets

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Very cool UI wise, but not sure how maintainable it is from a development perspective. Can anyone shed some light on if he was using a tool to build this out? The code found at [http://www.rleonardi.com/interactive- resume/script/main.js](http://www.rleonardi.com/interactive- resume/script/main.js) is extremely hard to read.

<comment><USER30> I don't think he used a tool; it looks like it was coded by hand to me. I'm a bit iffy on whether or not he is actually a "javascript expert" \- global variables littered everywhere, no attempts at design patterns at all, horrendously long and confusing variable names.

Still a cool project though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> It's fun but terribly difficult to read and understand. I hope he provides the "traditional" version as well for the people who just want the information and not the whole shabang.

<comment><USER32> What do you not know about him after running through this "course" that would change your mind about his skills?

<comment><USER33> It's hard to maintain a version of what he did with the distraction. A recruiter would have to put 3x more time into this. Scroll, stop, take time to read the font and try to make sense of the table.

That's a lot of mental activity. Whereas a quick traditional resume gives information in text and is easier to spot. Then if recruiter wants to see the profilo, say his github personal page, sure, a link.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Pretty, but it's time consuming to read. I still prefer to read a paper resume up to just two pages. Imagine everyone has an interactive resume like this: my eyes are going to hurt.

<comment><USER34> You would prefer a two page portfolio from a designer? That's crazy.

<comment><USER33> Why wouldn't I? If I need to refer to a particular work, I would have to use my arrow key scroll for 20 seconds to find that. So every time when I need a reference from his resume, I had to go through the trouble. It is pretty, but not a resume I want to read.

As a programmer how about me drawing a state diagram as an interactive resume? I have to follow a decision path and it's damn time consuming.

I think part of his resume is broken in Firefox too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> In the "innovative resume" department, check out this one from a few years ago:

[http://zef.so/employable/](http://zef.so/employable/)

</comment><comment><USER36> Now that the site's assets been knocked out, the author should think of making the site more readable to text readers/search engines...here's what the unstyled site looks like

LOADING MASTER EXPERT PROFICIENT FAMILIAR BEGINNER DESIGN ILLUSTRATION CODE ANIMATION Multidisciplinary Designer LEVEL 1 LEVEL 2 N B A F A N Sports Fan Live and Work in New York City Scroll down mouse or press keyboard's down- arrow to move forward Swipe from right to left to move forward Interactive Resume of BEGINNER FAMILIAR

</comment><comment><USER37> I liked this actually, but overall, I think it was more trouble than what it's worth. Maybe if tweaked or done differently, it would be much better.

Rather than bash it though, I'll give some constructive criticism.

1\. I noticed a few glitches during the tour. As the guy runs through the world, some of the effects lagged, and didn't display the parts of the resume/portfolio that it was suppose to.

Once I ran back and forwards through the level multiple times, only then did they displayed correctly.

2\. With this being interactive, it kind of distracts from actually looking at the resume itself. I felt myself more concerned with progressing through the world, than actually looking at the qualifications.

3\. The controls would have been better if it were <\- and -> to move the guy. Pressing up and down is a bit strange, as I think most people prefer using a keyboard over their mouse to go through this.

Pros:

1\. Very Creative, and cool idea.

2\. Refreshing take on a resume/portfolio.

3\. Shows off your design and coding skills.

4\. It's unique.

Cons:

1\. Probably not the best way to convey your information to possible employers.

2\. Controls are a bit weird.

3\. Not all the animations worked off the bat, and were delayed (I had to run through the level multiple times before it worked).

Suggestion:

I think if you're going to do an interactive resume/portfolio, you should just make it into an actual video game. Simple one level game where the user unlocks parts of your information as they progress through the level.

However, I think you should include at the bottom of the page or something, a link to a normally structured resume and portfolio as well, for people that may not have time to do the interactive/game thing.

Closing Point:

You've got a lot of negative, and positive feedback from your post. Don't let yourself be discouraged, but also be willing to listen and use this feedback to do it better, and adapt/change things where needed.

Good luck with your ventures!

</comment><comment><USER38> I think this was supposed to be "interactive résumé", as it doesn't seem to have anything to do with power management. But it's definitely cool. :-)

<comment><USER39> Ladies and gentlemen, Chairman of the Pedantic Society. 'Resume' is acceptable spelling [1], or 'CV' as it's correctly called.

[1] [http://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=resume](http://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=resume)

<comment><USER40> Speaking of pedantry...

In the USA a CV is often seen as distinct from a resume. They are used amongst academics and high-skill professionals to show an individuals full career history, with emphasis on education and publications.

It _can_ be interchangeable with a resume, but it _may_ not be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> While this format may not work for everyone, for a UI person, I think this is an awesome way to apply. Great Job!

How difficult would it be for you to allow printing in a resume format (hidden div with info, activated using the CSS print layout option???) At least then there is the option of printing your resume from this page directly. You might even be able to provide a link in the corner of the page to activate printing. Just an idea. Good Luck!

</comment><comment><USER42> Cute. Got my attention. Not sure about the flashing text at the beginning though - too hard to read.

</comment><comment><USER43> Ctrl-P -> 29 blank pages. Maybe script in some printable form. Other than that, great stuff.

<comment><USER44> I was going to say something sarcastic, but if I could print this page and get a proper resume I would be blown away. Wouldn't be hard to do with the proper stylesheet either. Even so I am blown away already by how cool this is!

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is some pretty horrible advertising for StartLogic.

I assume the site was taken down because of the traffic spike. Apparently Totally Reliable Web Hosting and Unlimited Bandwidth can only go so far.

</comment><comment><USER46> Is that not more of a portfolio example rather than a resume?

</comment><comment><USER47> Tried to write him a note encouraging him to check us out. The comment box doesn't work. Designers, shrug. Seems like a pretty cool person!

</comment><comment><USER48> You can build that and still working on fox news?

<comment><USER49> That's sure some ironic snark.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> The only language listed that was actually a programming language was Javascript (the rest being HTML, CSS, and JQuery).

</comment><comment><USER51> I know several people who will dismiss this resume because "it doesn't open properly in Microsoft Word."

</comment><comment><USER52> How much would it cost to hire someone to do this?

Non-technical guy. I would love to try this out. It is attention grabbing. I have used bobble heads, cakes with my sales proposals to get into the door. Corny, but stuff like this works. I sent Robbie a message. If anyone else knows how to do this or something similar please message me.

<comment><USER53> I've done similar sites, and would love to do another. Just send me an email: jazzinthemorning at gmail.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> The resume is great and displays the proficiency that he has over design but .. Will a recruiter with CVs and Resumes flooding his inbox .. really have a time to look at this ?? I don't think Rob would apply to a company through a recruiter though :D

PS : Again .. I am looking at this from a Recruiter's perspective

<comment><USER55> 100% agree with you. 9/10 people don't read resumes but skim them and putting so many clicks between and the content will hurt.

But 1) This is solid show of skill 2) He should/can simulatenously maintain a simple version.

<comment><USER54> @jdappletini ... Right he can have a Single Page Resume as well. That would be of great help to people !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Cool project. A few small suggestions:

(1) Fix the spelling of After Effects.

(2) You might want to reverse the order of jobs so that the most recent is listed first, since that is what recruiters will be most interested in seeing.

(3) The text within your job description boxes can be tightened to highlight your specific contributions and their impact.

</comment><comment><USER57> Really nice site! Only bit I'd change is how experience is communicated. Everything being set to "expert" or "master" (aside from animation) made it kind of hard to believe and kind of robotic.

But still, the overall charm more than made up for it and my day has been made slightly better. :)

</comment><comment><USER58> Nice Resume, but took a lot of time to go through it. Could've gamified it in a more intuitive way. :)

</comment><comment><USER59> 30 years of side scrolling gaming history on computers. four arrow key options for movement. this person chose up and down to represent left and right.

user interface experience ( ) master ( ) proficient ( ) beginner (x) antagonistically counter-intuitive and user-unfriendly

<comment><USER60> You are wrong to judge his skills this harshly in this domain, he introduced the only thing you needed to know, and he stuck with it the whole way through.

It's unstated actions that have to be intuitive, but this page outright explains the only action required.

Nothing counter-intuitive or unfriendly here.

<comment><USER59> ah, yes. up is left. there's nothing counterintuitive about that.

<comment><USER60> up is left is not counter intuitive when you outright state it and its the only thing you have to keep in mind.

<comment><USER59> what do you think of my new intuitive keyboard layout: b is a and a is q and q is b!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> This is fun! I loved the colors, the graphics, the scenery.

My suggestion: in addition to space-moves-you-forward and shift+space-moves- you-backwards keyboard controls, you should also give this functionality to the left and right arrow keys. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER62> Impressive but I didn't get the Expert in Javascript, Proficient in JQuery part...

</comment><comment><USER63> Resume management is mostly computerized text management now. You want to keep the format simple and use the clearest and most direct wording.

In the interview or pre-interview they may ask for samples of your work. be more creative then.

<comment><USER64> You are right if you're submitting your resume electronically or to a HR database. I doubt this resume was meant for that. Different formats for different uses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Besides being a pretty neat way to filter out companies that are willing to put a little bit of extra effort into their hiring process, this is also one of the few appropriate uses I've seen of the Lobster font ;)

</comment><comment><USER66> Very impressive - would be even better if it would include a bit of CSS to format the print-out like a normal CV / profile (currently generates about 30 basically empty pages in Chrome & FF)

</comment><comment><USER67> What's interactive about it? Right arrow doesn't do nothing, only down and up. So it's like scrolling down a page, a nice page but there's nothing gamified or interactive here.

<comment><USER68> '2D streamable' resume then ?

<comment><USER67> scrollable?

<comment><USER68> __semantic happy minute __

scrollable has a 'non-limited' feel in my mind, continuous translation allowed , as in google maps. A stream is more a one dimensional idea, and here you get 2 streams, sometimes vertical, sometimes horizontal, but you can't go everywhere by combining both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> If I leave him in level two for too long, will he lose a life?

</comment><comment><USER70> The Foxnews pie chart should add up to more than 100%. :D

</comment><comment><USER71> Unfair competition! All candidates should be given equal chance via the same means of presentation. He's just trying to sneak around the gatekeeper.

</comment><comment><USER72> I like how people are getting creative about scrolling these days. A few years back no one though about hooking interactive animations to page scroll.

</comment><comment><USER73> nonconformist personality type problematic for organization hierarchy; refer to consultant relations department regarding successful publicity stunt.

</comment><comment><USER74> Creative indeed. But the time spent in scrolling down, absorbing the content and then scrolling back, may irritate the short-of-time interviewers.

</comment><comment><USER75> Doesn't work on the latest Chromium for me, using Gnome-Shell 3.8 So maybe not the best way to showcase oneself, if it's not reliable.

</comment><comment><USER76> I can't tell if it's jealousy, but the comments here are dreadful. I wish good luck to this dude, clearly a very gifted web designer.

</comment><comment><USER77> Guess it's time for me to redo mine: [http://me.morgante.net/about](http://me.morgante.net/about)

</comment><comment><USER78> Could you send us your resume as a Word file please?

</comment><comment><USER79> It doesn't look very interactive to me: [http://imgur.com/J5ym1W3](http://imgur.com/J5ym1W3)

</comment><comment><USER80> All the way through I was just thinking Commodore 64..Commodore 64...

Nice idea, but would still want something on paper in a relatively conformable format.

</comment><comment><USER81> Become a Fan of you, i want to learn this level. One line from my side "For me this is 1000 time better than GTA 5 " :)

</comment><comment><USER82> Beautiful. Really great, creative work. Would definitely invite for an interview, if I were in the market for this skillset.

</comment><comment><USER83> Why does it matter if you're an NBA fan.

<comment><USER84> Putting a bit about personal interests into a CV is pretty standard - you want to display that you have _some_ personality.

The placement is a bit off though - it's in an early important placement, and arbitrarily dividing up sets of skills. His personality is also well shown by the style of the resume itself!

Also, is it just me that is irritated by the vertical style of the "skills" graphs at the start and then the horizontal style when underwater? Was confused what I was looking at for a moment there.

<comment><USER83> I thought the same thing about the graphs!! I was confused what I was supposed to be looking at when I saw the second graph.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> What is this fascination with showing skills as some kind of graph? How did this start and why does anyone do it?

</comment><comment><USER86> This is incredibly impressive. Here I was feeling good about what I got done today, then I saw this.

</comment><comment><USER87> Amazing. I was only looking at character/animation ... and then read your resume backwards :P

<comment><USER88> This is exactly what I did, I thought about it as well. Seems like most people might end up reading the actual content backwards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> This is a great exercise of talent and skill.

Too bad the HR department would never hear my side of the argument.

</comment><comment><USER90> It's awesome resume for graphic/designer. Very very creative!

</comment><comment><USER91> Pretty cool! Some feedback: lose the flashing instructional text.

</comment><comment><USER92> Looks nice. shortcut to jump to specific levels would be good.

<comment><USER93> I used the scroll wheel all the way through, the whole page shakes when you do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> Spacebar skips to next section, did it say that at the start?

<comment><USER39> Not the next section, but a standard browser behaviour of scroll-down-a-tad on any page, shift+space as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> This is pretty incredible. I am in awe of your skills.

</comment><comment><USER96> I hope he didn't have PersonalLogic hosting plan

</comment><comment><USER97> Awesome enough that I made it all the way to the end!

</comment><comment><USER98> I liked that part where I made the character dance.

</comment><comment><USER99> Quite annoying.

</comment><comment><USER100> He just jump out of the water like that?

</comment><comment><USER101> the site is down. Anyone got a mirror?

</comment><comment><USER102> Anyone saved a cached version of this?

<comment><USER53> always can do: google.com/search?q=cache:<url here> so in this case: [http://google.com/search?q=cache:http://www.rleonardi.com/in...](http://google.com/search?q=cache:http://www.rleonardi.com/interactive- resume/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER103> looks nice. but honestly i dont think it serves the purpose "resume"

</comment><comment><USER104> Awesome ...

</comment><comment><USER105> 10 second limit is up. Next resume.

</comment><comment><USER106> my eyes

</comment><comment><USER107> I'd hire you in a heartbeat.

</comment><comment><USER108> I find it strange that the buildings (Statue of Liberty, have faces on their first level). Why is this?

</comment><comment><USER109> quite possibly the dumbest thing i've ever seen. yet, uniquely brilliant. still, only a might hire in my book.

</comment><comment><USER110> Honestly, I find these absolutely obnoxious</comment>


A Consumer's Security Vulnerabilities in Open Source Software - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/security-vulnerabilities-in-open-source-software-f465687119aa <comment><USER2> I didn't see any concerns about open source software which weren't equally true of non-open source software.

(And some parts weren't true. There's a huge amount of open source software which isn't widely deployed.)</comment>


The UNIX Time-Sharing System - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~mwalfish/cs395t//ref/ritchie74.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a non-pdf version on Ritchie's homepage[1], but at the moment that's not responding. I just thought today was a good day to read or re-read this succinct description of UNIX from Ritchie and Thompson.

[1] <http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/cacm.html></comment>


New results on preschool from a Tennessee RCT - <AUTHOR> http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/10/new-results-on-preschool-from-a-tennessee-rct.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29 <comment><USER2> The current education systems are hurting kids.

I don't know how preschool looks like, but when I suspect to have a less constrained (less or no tests and grades) learning environment then I think, is this shaping the expectations of learning in general and that the kids simply get bored of school and its constraints. As the study results say, the "negative effects" are seen in second and third class, which is the time things get tight in school. Also likely that the use of advanced teaching methods in preschool also leads to higher expectations of school.

<comment><AUTHOR> It could also be that children that spend time with their parents are more well adjusted.

<comment><USER2> I think, that especially in immigrant families, both parents have jobs and usually a hard work life, which means less time with children. But I don't know the statistics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is there a reason why some of the comments on the blog are openly racist? I feel I'm missing some context here?

<comment><USER4> It's marginal revolution, a right-wing propaganda site. From Wikipedia: _" Cowen also serves as general director of George Mason's Mercatus Center, a university research center that focuses on the market economy and that is funded by the Koch Family Foundation"_

<comment><AUTHOR> I submitted, saw it shared by Marc Andreessen, never visited the site before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Which of course has no universal applicability. There are pre-K programs that work, especially where the parents are taught critical skills to help their children develop. See, for example, Harlem Children's Zone.</comment>


Darpa summons researchers to reinvent computing - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/116081-darpa-summons-researchers-to-reinvent-computing <comment><USER2> The report mentioned (<http://www.cse.nd.edu/Reports/2008/TR-2008-13.pdf>) is great for getting up to speed on many issues related to processor design.</comment>


UTC, TAI, and Unix time (1997) - <AUTHOR> http://cr.yp.to/proto/utctai.html

<comment><USER2> The article title should include (1997) as the year it was written.

Much better (updated much more recently with the latest developments) link is:

[http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/time/leap/](http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/time/leap/)

also

[http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/](http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/)

"In 1970 the CCIR (predecessor of the ITU-R) decided to disconnect clocks from the rotation of the earth, but they kept the calendar connected to the rotation of the earth. That decision was implemented starting in 1972, and since then the leap seconds have maintained the connection.

In 2015 the ITU-R will decide whether the calendar will also become disconnected from the rotation of the earth. If the ITU-R decides to abandon leap seconds in UTC then the calendar day will become regulated purely by cesium atoms, not by sunrise, noon, sunset, nor midnight. The ITU-R will choose between these two options."

More background:

[http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/amsci.html](http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/amsci.html)

The possible solution:

For most uses knowing about leap seconds is unnecessary. Ignoring them is convenient and enough for the common computers: you as the programmer can then assume that every day has 86400 seconds, and the variations due to leap seconds are probably less than those that happen due to your computer not having the atomic clock built in (the time provided by your hardware is, unsurprisingly, much less stable than the one of the atomic clocks and you probably don't care).

The most recent popular article by Kuhn (2015) explains the problem most of the programmers and computer users have is easily solvable without changing UTC:

[http://theconversation.com/an-extra-second-on-the-clock- why-...](http://theconversation.com/an-extra-second-on-the-clock-why-moving- from-astronomic-to-atomic-time-is-a-tricky-business-35970)

"Unfortunately, the way NTP implemented leap seconds in Unix and Linux operating systems (which run most internet servers) made things worse: by leaping back in time to the beginning of the final second and repeating it. Any software reading off a clock twice within a second might find the deeply confusing situation of the second time-stamp predating the first. A combination of this and a particular bug in Linux caused computers to behave erratically and led to failures in some datacentres the last time a leap second was introduced in 2012, notably in one large airline booking system. Instead, alternative implementations now just slow down the computer's clock briefly in the run up to a leap second to account for the difference."

And his proposal (since 2005, updated in 2011 based on the use of similar principle by Google, still valid):

[https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/time/utc- sls/](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/time/utc-sls/)

"UTC-SLS is a proposed standard for handling UTC leap seconds in computer protocols, operating-system APIs, and standard libraries. It aims to free the vast majority of software developers from even having to know about leap seconds and to minimize the risk of leap-second triggered system malfunction."

"Overall, the Google experience suggests that there is a justifiable need for a smoothed version of UTC for use in computer APIs, if only for due diligence reasons. (...) UTC-SLS has many additional advantages and remains a desirable and more robust candidate for a standardized, long-term solution for the same problem.

I like UTC-SLS as the best approach for most of common use cases.

Edit: now UTC-SLS can be also discussed here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9018504](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9018504)

<comment><USER3> Steve Allen is one of the more vocal proponents of leap seconds and knows much more than I do about the issue. However the general thesis that "Discontinuing leap seconds would require many observatories and other organizations to procure new hardware and rewrite software that deals with time and the earth's rotation" has always left something to be desired. I have never understood why the needs of a small minority (astronomers) should be the deciding factor for society as a whole. The argument for leap seconds would be a lot stronger if it did not seem like a tyranny of the minority.

<comment><USER2> The leap seconds in the UTC aren't making any problem if the operating systems wouldn't do "unexpected" things with them, as described by Kuhn. Specifically, the software "clocks" for "humans," those that are bound to the calendar time, should just have 86400 seconds in a day. (2) When the atomic clocks signal them the "leap" second they should just "smooth" it. We can have that with some updates of our favourite operating systems. It's a pure software thing.

The solution (UTC-SLS) is simple and good enough for most of the uses, including Google's synchronisation needs of the millions of their computers.

The UTC is still just the to-the-second approximation of the UT1 (1) which is by definition bound to the Earth rotation ( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Time](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Time) ). Steve Allen just tries to make people understand that the UTC is by definition "the human calendar time" (like: year, month, day, hour, minute, second) sent over the radio clocks.

For the time less dependent on Earth TAI also exists ( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Atomic_Time](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Atomic_Time) ). So we already have the time reference that "just counts the atomic seconds."

Had there been less confusion among the programmers regarding the leap second handling on the common systems we'd already all use the UTC-SLS solution and we wouldn't have to care about the leap seconds unless we really need TAI.

\---

1) Watch out for [http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/conferences/wrc/2015/Pages/defau...](http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/conferences/wrc/2015/Pages/default.aspx) (2 to 27 November 2015) if that changes.

2) POSIX already specifies that every day has exactly 86400 seconds for "Seconds Since the Epoch" and the current code relies on that: [http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_...](http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap04.html#tag_04_15)

<comment><USER3> Why deal with the complexity of leap seconds; given TAI why should society as a whole deal with the complexity of leap seconds just because it makes life a little easier for astronomers?

<comment><USER2> It's not about being easy for the astronomers but for the humans. The astronomers already have to use all of TAI, UT0, UT1 and UTC and much more complex calculations. We other humans use days. We have the daylight saving time and nobody cares for an hour difference twice a year because those who do care use the less moving time stamps, often called UTC, even if they are just "synchronized with UTC" and not exactly UTC, as they have in POSIX-inspired systems exactly 86400 seconds in a day, always. Only some of the programmers then "discover" the definition of the leap second and remain confused by the fact that their computers use "UTC" name and wrongly think that the exact leap seconds are important for them even if they only need the calendar time.

If you use the POSIX time routines (and you almost certainly do use them unless you tweaked something wrongly) you already don't have to deal with the complexities of the leap seconds (but you should care about DST!) Every day in what POSIX calls "Seconds Since the Epoch" (but is sometimes referred to as UTC) has in fact the same number of seconds (if you know C it's what you get in time_t for all the time stamps). Only the OS-es have to be fixed to smooth the leap seconds instead of introducing them at once, and then even some obscure sync bugs will never happen any more. Google proved that it's a good approach.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Asana raises $50M at a $1.5B valuation - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/29/asana-a-work-management-platform-nabs-50m-growth-round-at-a-1-5b-valuation/ <comment><USER2> I've used Asana in a couple of projects and actually like it for its simplicity and ease of doing things like copy pasting multi line issues from a spreadsheet, text file, or chat; easy editing with multi select; and similar features that make the product feel more similar to a spreadsheet than an annoying issue tracker where every click results in modal dialogs with OK buttons and other cruft. I hate stuff like Jira with a passion and it doesn't do anything for me that I 1) need 2) Asana does not do in a way that is more convenient.

That being said, it's not 1.5B dollars cool and that kind of multi billion valuation creates unrealistic expectations that cannot possibly be fulfilled by staying humble and focusing on just what Asana does best. So, this kind of investment smells like a kiss of death. I fear the worst here in terms of layering on features nobody wanted, and attempts to make the product more appealing for the masses, etc. Is this going to be an actual IPO or a lazy acquihire by some company in need of an issue tracker?

<comment><USER3> I use it at work and as far as I can tell it's just a web app where you can move cards around. I do like the fact that it's simple and snappy and doesn't have a shitload of options and features no one wants that cause it to load super slow (Cough cough Jira) However, some basic workflow enforcement would be nice (Cards marked done when you put them in the "done" column) In its current state it seems like it could be cloned in a week. Edit: cloned in a day if you wanted just the functionality and not a cute little UI

<comment><USER4> It's easy to make a (poor) copy of the product. It's hard to execute the idea, take market share, and capture customer revenue.

Asana blogged this year about 50k organisations, 6 quarters accelerating growth [1].

Back in 2015 they blogged mentioning the heating up 'enterprise collaboration market'. There's countless office tools, diagramming tools, collaboration tools. Even in software there's more CI systems than I can count.

My guess is there's a big market which the VCs think is accessible to Asana in a way it's fundamentally not to a competitor. Combined with big growth it makes sense.

[1] [https://blog.asana.com/2018/09/asana-company- updates-2018/](https://blog.asana.com/2018/09/asana-company-updates-2018/)

<comment><USER5> Taiga.io is a pretty good facsimile, but Taiga tries to incorporate too many of JIRA's Agile-related non-features rather than sticking to the basics. There is no good alternative (right now).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Tried Asana, couldn't stand it. Moved to Airtable, which is vastly superior to Asana and moderately better than Trello. Now I use Notion on recommendation of an HN poster. Far from perfect, but beats Asana out of the park.

All of these services with these massive valuations still somehow struggle to get their core product right, it's like it lacks vision. These products are also mindbogglingly slow-moving. I don't know how Asana can justify a $1.5b valuation though. On paper, maybe, but when we talk about profit or revenue, I'm skeptical to say the least.

What exactly they need $50m for, I'm not quite sure.

<comment><USER7> Almost every sentence in this reply seems uninformed. Airtable & Asana are not comparable. Asana clearly has vision but possibly different from yours. A company raising Series E obviously would have positive financials. Founder posted hockey stick graph of revenues on Twitter. $50m is not that big of a Series E raise and will obviously go to engineering and sales & marketing.

<comment><USER6> > "Airtable & Asana are not comparable."

I wouldn't say they're not comparable, Airtable is commonly used for the same use cases as Asana, much like Trello and Notion. Airtable can also be used for other purposes, but this doesn't make comparisons unwarranted. It even has a Kanban view.

> "$50m is not that big of a Series E raise and will obviously go to > engineering and sales & marketing."

I don't find that the product is good enough to warrant investment, and I don't believe it'll be successful in the long run unless changes are made. There's people who will disagree and love Asana.

I think Notion got it right with the focus on rich text content. The tasks you need to get done and the information about your project can all be in the same project. I think Notion could become a serious contender to overtake Asana.

Just for example, I dislike sorting with Asana. You can't sort in Kanban boards. You can't sort by X and then by Y. This is what their _core product_ is. That doesn't instill me with confidence.

I guess mark-as-dependent functionality is nice though?

I must say I am very surprised by the ARR [0], which is much more than Atlassian's $619m last year. I'll admit I was wrong there. Congratulations to them.

[0] [https://twitter.com/moskov/status/1068184742762229761](https://twitter.com/moskov/status/1068184742762229761)

 _Edit: Shrunk reply._

<comment><USER6> I was not in a aware state of mind when writing this reply, obviously if Asana was pulling in $1b+ a year in revenue they'd be valued at an order of magnitude more than $1.5b.

Their revenue would probably still be pretty good since they have 50k+ organizations paying $20+ per user per month [0].

[0] [https://blog.asana.com/2018/09/asana-company- updates-2018/](https://blog.asana.com/2018/09/asana-company-updates-2018/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Am I the only one that has tried asana multiple times and given up after each major iteration?

<comment><USER9> Nope. I'd like to hire their sales/marketing people though, for they seem to have an uncanny ability to solution sell it to execs who will then force it down on their organizations. :P

Anyone here that actually had to use Asana, and somehow found it beneficial/useful? How?

<comment><USER10> We tried a LOT of tools and Asana has been by far the best. Even just finding a product that had dependencies, gantt charting, and decent multi-user support was nearly impossible.

<comment><USER11> Have you looked at Paymo? [http://www.paymoapp.com](http://www.paymoapp.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >Specifically, it plans to open an AWS-based data center in Frankfurt in the first half of next year, and it will set down more roots in Asia-Pacific, with offices in Sydney and Tokyo.

Is it normal (in tech journalism, at least) to say "opening an AWS-based data center?" I had to read that a few times over because I thought the article switched to an Amazon article.

<comment><USER13> > and it will set down more roots in Asia-Pacific, with offices in Sydney and > Tokyo

meaning they will provision AWS instances in these locations?

<comment><USER14> As far as I know, we are not planning on adding AWS instances there at this time. Those are locations for offices we plan to open.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Every time the team has tried to use Asana we've given up. It's slow on my iMac Pro. It's so slow and there's no reason why it ought to be. It's painful to perform any operation with it.

...maybe it's because I use Firefox, but even then there's little excuse.

<comment><USER10> Super fast on my Macbook Pro. Might I suggest using Nativefier?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Team uses Asana and hates it. Agree with them. Pretty much a half-wit beta tool.

</comment><comment><USER17> I use Trello, I find it smooth experience. Tried Asana once and I didn't like the feeling of "bloat". I am shocked by this valuation. I feel like after AirTable's valuation few weeks back here in HN, now every other productivity tool is getting a bubble-valuation effect?

</comment><comment><USER18> And yet they still can't solve empty tasks getting created for no good reason. Yes, I know you can hit the delete or backspace key, but bloody hell, just don't save the damn thing unless there is some data to actually save.

I'm sure that allocating 0.01% of this funding round to the dev will be more than enough?

Also, how about being able to convert lists to kanban and vice versa?

Other than that, quite a happy user :)

<comment><USER19> Ha! Totally agreed. Super annoying when you click somewhere randomly and an empty task is created.

Aside from really petty annoyances, I find Asana does what I want it to. I don't feel very strongly about it either way. If another product showed up that was better, I'd move in a heartbeat.

It just doesn't inspire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> To me, $50M seems like a tiny amount of raise for such a high valuation. Is this normal?

<comment><USER21> They've raised over $200M

A proper translation of this lingo is "$50m worth of shares were sold at a price that puts all the shares combined at a price of $1.5B"

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I just moved to Asana because I'm joining a team that needs to manage tasks together. There are a lot of things that just seem nonsensical to me.

Very little information exists at the project level - there's no way to tag, sort, or filter through different projects. It's almost a useless level of organization.

Custom fields seem to be accessible across teams in an organization, though there is no easy way to carry them across projects. They also seem like they don't do much - you can't filter or search based on custom field values.

The UI has a bad sense of hierarchy and important information is easily hidden. Finding the notes associated with a subtask means you need to click a barely visible button that doesn't change state when information is behind it.

For how long they've been at it, these seem like simple problems to not have solved.

</comment><comment><USER23> The main thing I think when I read this is "I wonder how much Basecamp is 'worth.'" A far superior product, presumably a comparable number of customers, although I don't know, and I would guess far more profitable per customer.

</comment><comment><USER14> Relevant Dustin Moskovitz tweet about valuation vs revenue [https://twitter.com/moskov/status/1068184742762229761](https://twitter.com/moskov/status/1068184742762229761)

<comment><USER24> probably worth noting Moscovitz is worth 9.1 billion USD and Rosenstein 150 million....

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have tried using Asana multiple times but always find that I need desktop app to fully utilize a quick editing and task management. Without an app it's always multiple clicks away from adding a todo item, it's quite annoying to go to the website, login, select project and only then you can actually do something.

I've recently stumbled upon Notion [1], and it's just so much better and more convenient for me, they have desktop and mobile app as well, which helps a lot. And their unusual free editing based on templates has been super convenient for me so far.

1 - [https://www.notion.so](https://www.notion.so)

<comment><USER10> Using Nativefier helps most of the issues you have with there being no app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> In march of 2016, Asana also raised $50 million. Sam Altman led that round, at a valuation of $550 million. Crunchbase wrongfully states that YC led it.

If Sam Altman's investment exits add such amounts to his bank reserve that the reserve gets bigger than $10 million, he spends the surplus above that $10 million on 'improving humanity,' which I read as charity. (1)

(1) [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans- ma...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-manifest- destiny)

</comment><comment><USER27> Well, hopefully they'll use these funds to improve the product..

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I work at Asana - Site Lead for NYC

What I find most fascinating about this company is that something that sounds relatively unsexy - work management for enterprise - can be so well aligned with a truly unique mission. Enabling teams to collaborate effortlessly. For anyone who's worked at a dysfunctional company - politics, low morale, low transparency - it makes a huge difference when you have tools that help you collaborate and get on the same page.

<comment><USER28> By the same token, good tools do not solve politics, low morale or low transparency. I saw Justin Rosenstein and Dustin Moskovitz's talk when Asana was announced (2010? 2011?) and was converted. The idea of ditching email, bringing down barriers between silos and giving a greater vision between layers was inspiring and I immediately tried to implement Asana into all areas of my life.

It didn't really work for me as a personal organiser. Paper was just too damn handy, didn't require a log in and I didn't need any of the collaboration features. It didn't work for my dad and his business because he didn't quite 'get' the task oriented nature of the beast and ended up with a weird mish mash of orders, inquiries etc which ended up being unmanageable and he abandoned it quietly.

I tried setting it up for the production pipeline at the video society at my uni. I thought it would help lower the barrier to entry so that people could more easily get involved, see what was in the works, see tasks that were available to contribute to. But no, nobody logged in. The motivated people were just motivated and didn't require any task management and the disengaged people were too disengaged and uncurious to find it a useful resource.

I tried setting one up at my internship - a small data shop where _surely_ things could be easily captured as tasks. We could assign things, hand things over, track bugs in code, split up larger assignments into smaller ones. But again, after some initial curiosity and a lot of patience from the teams, it didn't quite take either.

It feels a bit like the slow rise of corporate instant messaging generally or slack more specifically. Tools can enable a massive improvement to an organisation's ability to keep in touch, react to change, collaborate and all that usual stuff, but unless the company embraces that change or has a mindset/culture that allows those benefits to come to fruition then even with something like Asana you won't be able to turn things around with tools alone.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're absolutely right. A mindset needs to accompany any tool in order for it to be successful - or direct relationship to how successful

There's a great book on this topic from the first dot com age. Necessary but not Sufficient ([https://www.amazon.com/Necessary-But-Sufficient-Eliyahu- Gold...](https://www.amazon.com/Necessary-But-Sufficient-Eliyahu- Goldratt/dp/0884271706)). The idea being you can adopt a tool but if you don't understand the mental models that go along with that tool then you won't fully reap the benefits.

As a company, this is still our responsibility. The best products educate as well as enable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I haven't tried Asana again recently, but my early impressions were that they were trying to target the space between project management and a todo list in a very awkward way that could only succeed if all the stakeholders buy in to its use. I guess that is what enterprise sales is for, but given the fact that they just publish growth graphs with no numbers, and that I don't know a single person in SV that both uses and likes Asana, I'm very skeptical about their future.

A tool should either be simple and flexible enough that it invites creative uses (Trello, Slack) or have a very clear commonly understood purpose that has widely (if perhaps grudgingly) acknowledged value (JIRA, Salesforce). Asana is in this uncanny valley like Google Wave where some people are impressed but then ultimately no one knows what to do with it.

</comment><comment><USER30> Ah Asana. The product we try and make work like Jira, but really just end up putting in a bunch of hacks to emulate epics, tagging, and all the other useful features.

</comment><comment><USER31> Sorry. I just really like VSTS or Azure DevOps or whatever they call it these days.

Just the fact that there's a little button baked right into Visual Studio where I can see all my work items, and the fact that I can literally assign a commit to a work item as I push it makes VSTS the best IMHO

</comment><comment><USER32> Question: all these multi-billion SAAS companies. Who are they replacing /who is losing revenue because of them? Or is the pie becoming higher :) ?

And what's happening, are the companies that more efficient with Asana et al?

</comment><comment><USER33> I haven't used assana since the earliest days. Just looked over their marketing website, wow it looks completely different! I may take another look but at the moment, I have no issues with pivotal tracker.

</comment><comment><USER34> A few years back there were about 5 of these products competing, and I think all the others closed down. Somehow Asana has managed to stay alive. Are they just buying time?

</comment><comment><USER35> Is this the FB-founder bump? I don't see this being worth that kinda valuation - can they do $150MM/year in revenue in such a crowded market?

</comment><comment><USER36> To nab a $1.5B valuation you sometimes have to raise $50M

</comment><comment><USER37> > The startup, whose products are used by millions of free and paying users,

I find it hard to believe, if im honest.

</comment><comment><USER38> Love Asana, not sure it's a viable business (like trello) but may be a good acquisition (like trello)

</comment><comment><USER39> So. This company raised $75 million less than a year ago. It just raised another $50 million for "growth" now, 10 years after it was founded...for a grand total of $213 million in venture capital.

What the heck will these guys do now with $125 million that they couldn't do in the past 10 years with $88 million?

<comment><USER40> If you can get capital for cheap (i.e. minimal dilution), then having a bit of cushion for any macroeconomic rollercoasters ain't such a bad idea. They can also use it for M&A, early employee liquidity, and a whole host of other useful functions.

<comment><USER39> Oh they'll use it...I have no doubt about that. If I led this company, I'd be foolish to turn it down (without knowing anything else). I'm less sure what's going through heads of their investors.

<comment><USER41> Why are you making all these bold statements without mention or discussion of any business metrics?

Without knowing things like yearly revenue growth, LTV of customers, churn, operational costs, etc. how could you make any claims about if the valuation or capital raised is or isn't justified?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> One chicken and two carne asana, please

</comment><comment><USER43> I prefer the original Asana color scheme (bluish) rather than current color scheme (redish).

</comment><comment><USER44> Dustin Moskovitz (co-founder of Facebook and founder of Asana) is worth 10.2 billion. Why doesn't he self-fund Asana?

[https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/dustin-a- mos...](https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/dustin-a-moskovitz/)

<comment><USER45> Well, if other people will do it for you, why bother?</comment></comment>


An (official) proposal for an exception-like mechanism in Google's Go - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/golang-nuts/browse_thread/thread/1ce5cd050bb973e4#

<comment><USER2> From this one ill-behaved goroutine could take down your program.

I'd like to see a mechanism where you could launch a goroutine such that it, and any goroutines it launches, all have a top level defer. That lets you launch potentially questionable third-party libraries in a goroutine safe in the knowledge that they will not take down your whole program.

Otherwise I like it.

<comment><USER3> > From this one ill-behaved goroutine could take down your program.

That's already possible so no change there. The child routine need only call panic or crash and it will destroy your program.

<comment><USER2> Right. There is currently no exception handling and so exceptions are fatal. The point of exception handling is to make it possible to make exceptions not be fatal.

The fact that this does not make it possible to keep exceptions from being fatal is a limitation on how strongly exceptions are handled.

<comment><AUTHOR> > The fact that this does not make it possible to keep exceptions from being > fatal is a limitation on how strongly exceptions are handled.

Maybe I'm missing something, but this does allow you to keep exceptions from being fatal using defer.

<comment><USER2> When an exception is thrown in a goroutine you climb the stack and any defer can trap the exception. However if you climb the stack of a goroutine to the top and there is no defer, you'll exit with a stack backtrace. So every goroutine has to have a defer if you want protection.

The problem comes in the fact that goroutines are considered cheap and are launched for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes in large numbers. If even one of those goroutines does not have a defer set up, then an exception can crash the program.

The use case I'm worried about is a webserver. In serving a web page I generally am happy to throw an exception, let it be caught at the top level, log it, then return a 500 page, internal server error. Watch your logs, fix the bugs, and release better software. However if you take this strategy with go, then the careless application programmer can accidentally take down the webserver.

What I'd like to be able to do is have a smart person set the webserver up, and then be able to let more junior programmers write code for an application on top of it knowing that there are some limits to the likely damage that they'll do.

<comment><USER3> > If even one of those goroutines does not have a defer set up, then an > exception can crash the program.

This might help.

        func GoCatch(f func ()) {
          go func () {
            defer func () {
              e := recover()
              if e != nil {
                log.Stderr(e.String())
              }
            }()
            f()
          }
        }

<comment><USER2> Yes, but my concern was, and remains, what happens with third party libraries. The fact that I can rewrite my stuff easily does not mean that I can rewrite that stuff as easily.

<comment><USER3> I guess I'm not really understanding the problem. What third-party library weakness do you think Go is especially susceptible to, exactly? An example would be nice.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>